GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : GRE Subject Test: Literature in English

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English

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All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources

1 Diagnostic Test 158 Practice Tests Question of the Day Flashcards Learn by Concept

Example Questions

Example Question #31 : Contexts Of American Prose

Which of the following is not another novel by the author of Blood Meridian?

Possible Answers:

All the Pretty Horses

No Country For Old Men

Suttree

The Road

Freedom

Correct answer:

Freedom

Explanation:

McCarthy wrote The Road (2006), No Country For Old Men (2005), All the Pretty Horses (1992), and Suttree (1979). He did not, however, write Freedom; that title is a 2010 novel by Jonathan Franzen.

Example Question #31 : Contexts Of American Prose

Who is the author of Blood Meridian?

Possible Answers:

Philip Roth

Raymond Carver

Jonathan Franzen

Raymond Chandler

Cormac McCarthy

Correct answer:

Cormac McCarthy

Explanation:

Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West (1985) is Cormac McCarthy’s fifth novel.

Jonathan Franzen is the author of The Twenty-Seventh City (1988), Phillip Roth is the author of The Ghostwriter (1979), Raymond Chandler is the author of The High Window (1942), and Raymond Carver is the author of Cathedral (1983).

Example Question #32 : Contexts Of American Prose

Which genre does Blood Meridian belong to?

Possible Answers:

Western

Southern gothic

Künstlerroman

Picaresque

Magic Realism

Correct answer:

Western

Explanation:

Blood Meridian (1985) is set in the Mexican-American borderlands in the late 1840s and early 1850s and concerns the adventures of a gang of scalp hunters. It is characterized as a Modern or Revisionist Western.

Example Question #33 : Contexts Of American Prose

Which of the following is an unfinished novel by the author of Infinite Jest?

Possible Answers:

Billy Budd

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

The Pale King

The 120 Days of Sodom

Dubrovsky

Correct answer:

The Pale King

Explanation:

The Pale King was posthumously published in 2011 by David Foster Wallace’s wife, Karen Green, and editor, Michael Pietsch, and was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Billy Budd (1924) is by Herman Melville, The 120 Days of Sodom (1904) is by the Marquis de Sade, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) is by Charles Dickens, Dubrovsky (1841) is by Alexander Pushkin. All of these novels were also published posthumously.

Example Question #34 : Contexts Of American Prose

Who is the author of Infinite Jest?

Possible Answers:

Philip Roth

Jonathan Safran Foer

John Updike

David Foster Wallace

Jonathan Franzen

Correct answer:

David Foster Wallace

Explanation:

Infinite Jest (1996) is David Foster Wallace’s second of three novels. It concerns various characters at a junior tennis academy and drug addicts in a nearby substance-abuse recovery center and is written in a fragmentary, experimental form. The novel contains at least 200 pages of end notes.

Jonathan Franzen is the author of Strong Motion (1992), Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of Everything is Illuminated (2002), Phillip Roth is the author of Goodbye Columbus (1959), and John Updike is the author of Toward the End of Time (1997).

Notably, in his 1997 review of Toward the End of Time Foster Wallace classified Updike and Roth as two of America's "great male narcissists."

Example Question #98 : Contexts Of Prose

During what decade was Infinite Jest published?

Possible Answers:

1970s

2000s

1960s

2010s

1990s

Correct answer:

1990s

Explanation:

Infinite Jest (1996) was begun in the late 1980s and published in 1996.

Example Question #278 : Cultural And Historical Contexts

During what decade was The Corrections published?

Possible Answers:

1970s

1990s

1980s

1960s

2000s

Correct answer:

2000s

Explanation:

The Corrections was published in 2001 and received the National Book Award the same year.

Example Question #35 : Contexts Of American Prose

Which of the following is not another novel by the author of Portnoy’s Complaint?

Possible Answers:

The Human Stain

Everyman

Bullet Park

American Pastoral

Sabbath’s Theater

Correct answer:

Bullet Park

Explanation:

Philip Roth published American Pastoral in 1997, The Human Stain in 2000, Everyman in 2006, and Sabbath’s Theater in 1995. Bullet Park is a 1969 work by the American writer John Cheever.

Example Question #101 : Contexts Of Prose

During what decade was Portnoy’s Complaint published?

Possible Answers:

1950s

1960s

1980s

1970s

1990s

Correct answer:

1960s

Explanation:

Portnoy’s Complaint was published in 1969, making it Roth’s fourth published novel.

Example Question #26 : Contexts Of American Prose After 1925

The author of The Corrections also wrote which of the following novels?

Possible Answers:

Invisible Man

The Broom of the System

Freedom

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The Bluest Eye

Correct answer:

Freedom

Explanation:

Jonathan Franzen published Freedom in 2010. The Broom of the System (1987) is by David Foster Wallace, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005) is by Jonathan Safran Foer, The Bluest Eye (1970) is by Toni Morrison, and Invisible Man (1952) is by Ralph Ellison.

All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources

1 Diagnostic Test 158 Practice Tests Question of the Day Flashcards Learn by Concept
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